Language:
English
Year of publication:
2010
Titel der Quelle:
Studia Judaica (Kraków)
Angaben zur Quelle:
13,2 (2010) 323-346
Keywords:
Herzl, Theodor,
;
Antisemitism History 1800-2000
Abstract:
Art critics have noted that Ephraim Moses Lilien (1874-1925) portrayed Herzl in his works as a "Semitic" ethnic type, particularly through a distinctive nose shape, which did not correspond to Herzl's real nose. Discusses this fact in the context of the racist discourse of the late 19th century, which ascribed a specific "ugly" appearance to European Jews, with the aim of demonstrating that such an appearance attested to the weakness and degeneration of Jews as an ethnic group. Jewish scholars and artists, specially those who belonged to the Zionist camp, argued that the specific Jewish ethnic appearance had nothing to do with degeneration and attempted to aestheticize the "Jewish physiognomy". The Zionists did not deny specific traits in Jewish appearance, but evaluated them positively. Lilien chose to aestheticize the "Semitic appearance" by endowing Herzl with it, because Herzl was seen by many Zionists as the embodiment of the Jewish national idea and the archetypal "new Jew".
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